> County clerks are not hired to do genealogy, so they may not always > be willing to go dust them off in the basement (or attic) unless > you're there in person to look (or you pay or beg a local person > they know to look at them for you). > > Connie > clsheets1@prodigy.net My question has always been, if the clerks are telling you that the records do not exist because of some disaster, how do you find out if some records actually remain? And if you find out that they do, how do you get the personnel working in the the repository to admit that and to let you look for them? [ There are a number of approaches to courthouse record access: (1) Go in person and be *extremely* polite while being persistent. (2) Find a local gen/hist society which knows the courthouse well. (3) Hire a local professional who knows the courthouse well. (4) Local librarians sometimes know records better than courthouse staff. - Mod ] Polly phheld@twcny.rr.com